In the dry cleaning of textiles, soil bound to the textile by a film of oil or grease is removed by dissolving the oil in a solvent. Additional benefits in dry cleaning are realized by the inclusion of dissolved detergent and a minor proportion of dissolved water to remove water-soluble soil as well as that bound to the fabric by oil and grease. The use of minor amounts of water in combination with detergent and solvent markedly decreases the percentage of garments requiring further treatment to remove stains after the dry cleaning process.
A continuing problem in dry cleaning operations is the prevention of redeposition of the soil removed from the textile. To this end, the dry cleaning solvent is generally filtered continuously during cleaning to remove the soil particles, and a portion of the filtered solvent is generally distilled after each load to remove dissolved oil and grease contaminants. During the cleaning operation itself, the detergents which have previously been used in the dry cleaning solutions tend to prevent redeposition of the soil onto the cleaned textiles. However, the detergents used in the past have not been entirely satisfactory, and the dry cleaning industry is continually seeking improvements in dry cleaning compositions which will result in faster and more thorough cleaning and which will more effectively prevent redeposition of the removed soil.